A jet-propelled fantasy about the macho rivalry between hotshot U.S. Navy pilots, the original Top Gun rocketed Tom Cruise to blockbuster superstardom back in 1986. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, masters of the ultra-simple “high concept” action movie, it was based on a magazine article, pitched as a poster, and scored massive box office success. Simpson and Bruckheimer chose novice British director Tony Scott, the younger brother of Ridley, partly because he had experience shooting fighter jets on car commercials. The original film became a major promotional vehicle for the Navy, boosting recruitment by up to 500 per cent. “All these kids thought they were going to fly jets,” Scott once told me, “but they ended up cleaning f*cking boilers 15 floors down in an aircraft carrier.”
Scott died in 2012, but he gets a memorial credit on director Joseph Kosinki’s reliably slick and adrenaline-pumped sequel, which has been decades in gestation, then spent a further two years on the runway awaiting take-off due to the pandemic. Its flight will be celebrated with full red carpet glam in Cannes, where it screens out of competition on May 18, with a global theatrical launch rolling out from May 22.
Maverick revisits Cruise’s eponymous character 30-plus years later, older and slightly wiser, but otherwise little has changed in the Top Gun movie universe. Uncomplicated machismo still rules the world, American military firepower is presented as an unambiguous force for good, and women are mostly adoring cheerleaders to testosterone-drunk jocks with high-tech weapons and major Daddy Issues. Welcome back to the Military Industrial Oedipal Complex.
The plot to Maverick is such a generic Cruise-tailored star vehicle, it could almost have been written by an algorithm. After more than 30 years as a U.S. Navy aviator, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) remains a lowly Captain and loose-cannon test pilot, denied career promotion by his naturally rebellious streak. In the first of many spectacular aerial sequences, he defies orders by pushing an experimental hypersonic stealth fighter to its limits, enraging his uptight bosses Cain (Ed Harris, in a disappointingly brief cameo) and Cyclone (Jon Hamm, in enjoyably priggish self-caricature mode).
But instead of facing court martial, Maverick is recalled to the “Top Gun” Naval Fighter Weapons School near San Diego on urgent military business. Here he is tasked with training the latest elite class of young pilots for a high-risk mission to destroy an illicit uranium enrichment plant hidden below a steep mountain valley in an unnamed enemy country. Complicating an already tense situation, one of the prime mission candidates is Lieutenant Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), son of Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (played by Anthony Edwards in the original film), who died in a freak accident partly caused by Maverick’s reckless aerial brinkmanship. Maverick vows to be the father that Rooster never had, but first he needs to win the younger man’s forgiveness and respect.
Filling the mandatory love-interest role is Jennifer Connelly as Maverick’s old flame Penny Benjamin, who naturally still has romantic feelings for him. Connelly is a much better actor than this simpering part requires, but she elevates Penny from one dimension to two. Cruise himself has a limited range but he smartly surrounds himself with more skilled performers, and generally benefits as a result. At 59, his lean-machine physique and Peter Pan looks also remain impressive screen assets, like an ageing boy-band singer still playing stadium shows while his former pop peers turn grey and wrinkly.
As an action thriller, Maverick does not disappoint. Shot with a minimum of CGI and full U.S. Navy cooperation, the extensive aerobatic sequences are kinetic, dynamic and dazzling. Sadly these pulse-racing peaks are strung together by a thin plot, shallow characters and corny dialogue. Indeed, Kosinski’s franchise-blurring sequel is essentially a Mission: Impossible movie in all but name. Joint screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who has built a solid track record as Cruise’s main writer-director collaborator on that other long-running series, works here within a similar set of simple narrative rules. Whether playing Maverick or Ethan Hunt, Cruise is an implausibly superhuman team leader performing a perilous set of extreme physical challenges while battling stuffy bureaucrats on his own side and shadowy enemies on the other. The stakes are high but – spoiler alert – his success is never in doubt.
Unburdened by anything resembling wit or subtlety, Maverick is chiefly an efficient brand-building exercise for its producer-star, ticking the full Tom Cruise bingo checklist. Extensive deployment of classic aviator shades and battered leather jacket? Affirmative. Sweeping shots of Cruise blasting across the Mojave desert on a sleek black motorcycle? Naturally. How about Cruise delivering a patriotic pep talk to young pilots in front of a giant stars and stripes flag? Hell yeah! Sadly the original film’s homoerotic subtext, as memorably deconstructed by Quentin Tarantino in Sleep With Me (1994), is much less comically overt here. That said, Cruise and his young male co-stars do show off their super-ripped, sun-bronzed, hyper-manly torsos in a team-building beach football game that could almost be a Bruce Webber fashion photo-shoot from 1987.
Maverick is peppered with stylistic homage to the first Top Gun, from recurring visual motifs to winking musical cues. Soundtrack composer Harold Faltermeyer returns to add retro synth-pop sheen to Hans Zimmer’s overly bombastic orchestral score, while Lady Gaga provides the obligatory, heart-tugging, syrup-drenched soft-rock power ballad. A poignant cameo by Val Kilmer as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s key rival in the original film, touchingly incorporates Kilmer’s speech problems in the wake of throat cancer treatment. This tender two-hander scene also provides the sole laugh-out-loud joke in an otherwise relentlessly mirthless, self-serious screenplay.
But for all its clunky tone and conservative choices, Maverick delivers exactly what anyone might reasonably expect from a Tom Cruise blockbuster, with maximum glossy polish and knowingly nostalgic swagger. Does it provide weapons-grade thrills as a fast-moving action spectacular? Unquestionably. Will it take your breath away? Almost certainly not, but expect further sequels if this one becomes the massive box office success that industry pundits are predicting. On Planet Cruise, the 1980s go on forever. See you later, aviator.
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Monica Barbaro, Lyliana Wray, Charles Parnell Danny Ramirez, Bashir Salahuddin
Screenwriters: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie
Story: Peter Craig, Justin Marks
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison
Cinematography: Claudio Miranda
Editing: Eddie Hamilton
Music: Harold Faltermeyer, Lady Gaga, Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe
Production companies: Skydance Media (US), Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films (US)
Distribution: Paramount
In English
131 minutes
